


one more time with feeling

by Acai



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alicia hugs him a lot, Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Baking, Banter, Bitty finds a family and they love him so much, Bitty loves Jack so much that he doesn't know how to handle it, Bonding, Children of Characters, Closeted Character, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Engagement, Established Relationship, Family Bonding, Fluff, Found Family, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Proposals, Self Confidence Issues, Team as Family, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-06 06:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14051190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acai/pseuds/Acai
Summary: For a baker, Bitty had never quite been able to stir together the ingredients to make a perfect son.[Five times that the Zimmermans taught Bitty about family, and one time that they were all the family he needed.]





	one more time with feeling

**Author's Note:**

> i experienced family for the first time in these last two weeks, and i've fallen in love. here's my ode to familia. 
> 
> tumblr: 12am

_**1** _   


Bitty loved his mom.

Really—he did. He always missed her when he was away from her. It wasn’t a secret that he got along with her, either. They shared boards on Pinterest and sent each other pictures of foods that they had made, and it was all fun and good.

But it still left a bittersweet taste in his mouth.

He liked sharing photos with his mom, but something raw always stirred in his gut when he did, because he knew that somewhere deep down she was disappointed. She was a sweet woman, but she would have rather taught her trade to a sweet, young girl instead of a son. He was supposed to be her strong boy—a man of the house. He was supposed to get tall and play football and jostle his friends around. He was _supposed_ to bring home a sugar-sweet gal who would wear his letterman’s jackets and his football jerseys, and they were supposed to have a doll of a daughter and a _real heartbreaker_ of a son.

She was disappointed, he was sure, because he had managed to be one let-down after another.

When he was little, he would sometimes hear his parents arguing about it. His mother cried, sometimes. She had been too soft on him. His father hadn’t roughed him up enough. They hadn’t taught him ball at a young enough age. They shouldn’t have let him bake on Thanksgiving. They should have had another son. It left a sour taste in his mouth to wonder about what he may have been if they had. Like maybe—maybe he might have been fixed if they had.

But there were so many what-ifs and not enough time. He could ponder the day away, thinking about _what if I just gave girls a try?_ or _what if I had stuck to football?_

He was happy, though. He was happy baking and vlogging and living somewhere that liked people like him. At times he wondered how something that made him so happy could be so evil.

Bitty loved his mom. He did. But he loved her best from a distance, and he knew that she could say the same thing about him. Texting her always left him feeling angry and buzzed, and seeing her left him stewing for weeks, lingering on a hundred what-ifs and hours of _look what you did to me._ It wasn’t her fault that she was raised the way that she was, but sometimes Bitty wished that she would at least _try._

Bitty didn’t love his dad. It was a terrible thing to say, he knew, but in the private of the Haus porch alone at night he would admit to himself that he didn’t care for his dad.

He was soft, yes. Maybe too soft for his own good. And maybe that’s why he couldn’t love a man who spent so long telling him that he would never amount to anything, as if the mockery and roughing up would be good for him.

For a baker, Bitty had never been quite able to stir together the ingredients to make a perfect son.

And he supposed that’s what made him nervous when it came to Jack’s parents. They were _good people._ It seemed to come naturally to them. Jack always talked about them fondly, sometimes shaking his head while he showed Bitty a text from his dad, or smiling while he saved a picture that his mom had sent him of the two of them eating dinner someplace. Bitty wasn’t scared of their nature the same way that he feared his own parent’s. He didn’t think that they would snap if he said the wrong things, and he knew that they wouldn’t simmer angrily in silence if he disagreed with something that they said.

 But they were _Jack’s parents,_ and Bitty wouldn’t be able to stand disappointing them, and he was sure that his nerves were radiating right off of him and into the open air. In fact, he was sure that it was, just judging by the way that Jack was throwing him a concerned glance.

“Are you okay?” He asked, pausing in his own nervous tapping.

“Fine.” Bitty said, and then winced at the curtness. “Sorry.”

“We can reschedule,” Jack ventured cautiously. “If you aren’t feeling well.”

Bitty patted his hand, trying for a reassuring smile. “We’re already here, hon. It might be a tad rude to cancel five minutes before they’re supposed to be here.” And, off Jack’s frown, “I am _fine,_ I’m just….nervous.”

“You’re good with people. They’ll like you. Anyway, they’ve already met you.”

“Not as your boyfriend,” Bitty frowned. “This is different. I don’t—um.” He paused, wetting his lips. “I don’t want to disappoint them. Or make them disappointed in _you.”_

“Eric—,”

“They’re good people, Jack,” Bitty cut him off, voice soft. “But even if they don’t say it, I don’t want to disappoint them by not being what they wanted for you.”

Jack was quiet for a minute, hands still underneath Bitty’s as he watched the tablecloth intently, eyebrows furrowed as if he were trying to think of a response.

“You make me happy,” he said, tone careful. “And you’re a good person, too. You’ve helped me a lot, and I’d like to think that I’ve helped you, too. We’re happy, Bits. And that’s all that they want.”

“Okay,” Bitty agreed, less hesitant. In the back of his mind, he thinks of blistering summers of being teased about girls that he liked, prodded about the daughter-in-law that he was going to give to the family someday.

Jack sent him a small smile. Then he stood, and Bitty assumed that meant that his parents had spotted them. He stood, turning around and hoping that his hand was still as he extended it to shake Jack’s dad’s hand. Bob’s handshake was firm as he clapped Bitty’s back, but it was when he turned to Alicia that he felt tension seeping out of him like a waterfall. She smiled at him, pulling him in for a hug before he had processed what was happening. Her perfume was familiar by now because it lingered on the packages that she sent Jack, and it was the smell of the jacket that she had left at Jack’s apartment months ago when she had visited. It was a soothing smell, and he sank into the hug.

Maybe a year ago it would have scared him. A year ago he wouldn’t have known how to handle the contact, would have juggled it around and followed through with a stiff back and trembling arms. But he knows by now about these gentle touches, has learned through nights with Jack watching trash TV into the middle of the night, and when he draws back he smiles at Alicia more calmly than he had before.

They sit down and order, and Jack finds Bitty’s hand under the table and gives a reassuring squeeze. The four of them talk about mundane things like college and work, but at the end of the night as they’re gathering their things Alicia leans over and squeezes his shoulder. She whispers, “I’m glad you’ve got each other,” and Bitty knows that she doesn’t resent him for not being a sweet girlfriend instead.

  


_**2** _

Most often, Jack’s parents will visit Jack in Providence. They say it’s for Alicia’s work, or because they like the Rhode Island food, but Bitty knows that it’s most likely because they like to check up on Jack. But, sometimes, Jack will fly to Montreal to visit them instead. It’s not uncommon, but Bitty has never gone along before.

He says yes without thinking the first time that Jack asks, and then backpedals nervously.

“Are you sure?” He asks.

“I’m sure,” Jack replies easily.

“Your parents won’t be mad?”

“They’ve been pestering me about asking you for months,” Jack says, mouth quirking up in a grin. “They want you there. They like having you around. _I_ like having you around, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I think I may have,” Bitty replies, and the nerves haven’t completely left, but the tension is seeping away slowly.

Jack has a game the day before they leave, so he comes home late and sleeps on the flight. At some point his head comes to rest on Bitty’s shoulder, and Bitty finds that he’s not worried about what anybody thinks. Maybe it’s his focus on other things, or maybe it’s the warm support that he’s been fed a diet of for two years now, but he’s never as nervous about these things as he used to be.

They get a cab to drive them from the airport to Jack’s home. It’s a two hour drive, and neither of them wanted to drive that long, so instead Jack does his best to practice Quebecois with Bitty in the backseat. His pronunciation is garbage, but he’s doing alright with the vocabulary.

Jack’s childhood home is nice, and his bedroom is all a soft blue. His parents welcome them warmly, and Alicia’s mom hugs him the way that she always does. He knows the smell of her perfume off the top of his head now.

While Jack talks about work with his mother, Bitty sits in the living room with Bad Bob Zimmerman himself to watch a hockey match, but he finds casualty in it that makes it less daunting than it seems. Bob only pays the game a half a mind of attention, talking about college and finals with Bitty, and sharing a story or two from his own fraternity days. He starts to tell one particular story, before Alicia swats him with a pillow and chances the subject gracefully to dinner in a way that leaves Jack and Bitty to make knowing eye contact.

They all agree that they’re not feeling up to going out somewhere to eat, so they stay in and Bitty joins Alicia in the kitchen to make chicken noodle soup and biscuits.

It’s nice. There’s no lingering and unsaid wrongness, and Alicia talks warmly with him about when Jack was little and got into mischief. It’s not about whether he’s somebody’s son or daughter—it’s just about making dinner together and enjoying it. Bitty has never experienced family without passive aggression, and it’s nice. It’s addictive.

They eat together, and Jack nudges his shoulder when they stand to rinse out their bowls. They watch old black and white sitcoms, all crowded on the couch, and Bitty watches Alicia trying to throw popcorn into her husband’s mouth.

It’s nice, and Bitty is happy.

They head up to bed late that night, and it’s while Jack is tugging on a t-shirt and Bitty is scrolling through Twitter that the tears come without any warning.

Before he can blink, Jack is there.

“I’m not sad,” Bitty says, probably looking hysterical through the tears. “I just—I love your family.”

Jack looks confused, so Bitty tries to explain through his hiccupping tears. “I’m scared of waking up without you and this—without—without seeing you on the weekends and going with you to see your family on the holidays. I know it’s not mine, but I—,”

“I love you, Bits,” Jack says, and the simplicity in his voice makes Bitty sob. “And this is your family. I mean, all this. The team, me—Bits, _my team_ loves you.”

“I don’t know how to…to…have a family.”

“You’re already doing it, bud,” Jack says, and they sit until Bitty’s breathing evens out and they fall asleep. In the morning they wake up to the sound of Jack’s parents burning pancakes, and Bitty kisses his boyfriend slow and steady in the weak sunlight that filters in through the thin curtains.

  


**_ 3 _ **

__Bitty knows Bob and Alicia well by now. He’s met them plenty of times, for holidays and dinners both, and he and Jack have Skyped with them often.

They’ve agreed to meet for dinner while Jack’s parents are in town for Alicia’s work, but upon meeting up at Jack’s apartment haven’t yet managed to agree on any one place. In the end it’s decided that Jack and Bob will go to The Bancroft, while Bitty and Alicia get sushi at a restaurant across the street, and that they’ll all meet afterwards to get dessert.

It makes Bitty nervous, somewhat, to think about a whole dinner alone with one of Jack’s parents. He knows that they’re kind people, and that they approve of him, but he still worries. He can’t help but to compare them to his own parents without meaning to, wondering if their tapping fingers translate to simmering anger, or if they mean what they say when they say nice things.

He knows that tapping is just something that they both do when they think, has known this for two years now, but his childhood lingers with him in ways that he wishes it wouldn’t even still.

He’s nervous, but he sits down across from Alicia and they order drinks as they’re handed menus.

As soon as the waitress has turned around, Alicia leans slightly in Bitty’s direction and smiles. “Have I mentioned that this is my favorite place to come for sushi?” As Bitty shakes his head, she picks up her martini, and her bracelets clink against the glass. “Seafood always tastes the best right off the coast.” Bitty hums his agreement. “Were you near the coast in Georgia?” She asks, brushing hair off her shoulder as if it’s an old habit from her modeling days.

“Madison,” he replies, though he’s aware that probably doesn’t mean anything to her. “It was a short drive. My mama would take my cousins and I a lot when we were younger.”

“I miss my hometown still, sometimes,” Alicia replies. “It was little, but I liked it.”

“Madison had nice architecture that I miss sometimes,” Bitty replies, because it’s true. He had liked all the old towns and brick roads.

“I’m sure your mother misses you,” Alicia’s voice is sympathetic. “It’s hard being so far from Jack, even if he is an adult.”

“We’re better apart,” Bitty says, surprised by the ease with which the honesty comes. “I love my mama, mind, but she’s not what I need, and I’m not what she wants.” Alicia’s smile falls. Bitty waves it off. “She’s got values.”

“If she can’t appreciate the son that she has because of her _values_ ,” Alicia’s voice is angry, wise with the advice of a mother. She shakes her head, not finishing her thought. “You’re a sweet boy, Eric, and I’m glad that you and Jack found each other. Family is messy sometimes, but family shouldn’t hurt needlessly.”

Their food comes and heaviness drops from their conversation. They talk about Alicia’s next project, and about a video that Bitty posted not too long ago.

It’s strange, talking with somebody’s mother about things like this. He finds that they can talk about anything—gay rights and vlogging and modeling would never come up in conversations with his own parents, and yet he speaks to Alicia about them with ease. There’s always a motherly, doting feeling coming from the woman, and Bitty finds himself soaking in it, holding onto it tightly enough that he’ll never have to let go.

By the end of the night, Bitty has photos on his phone of Alicia taking too-large bites of their fancy sushi and videos of them trying wasabi in strange combinations. They’re physical reminders of this—of the warm feeling that comes with these familial moments—and Bitty cherishes them like he’s never cherished anything before in his life.

  


_**4** _

It’s a nasty thing to think, but Bitty hates seeing his father’s number appear on the screen of his phone. He knows that it’s only going to bring him stress and what-ifs, but he always answers anyway.

He finds himself wishing that he didn’t.

And, oh, of course it had to be tonight, too. One of their few visits to Montreal to visit Jack’s parents, and his dad needs to call. Bitty shouldn’t fuss, he knows, so many kids never get calls from their dads at all and he should be grateful. But he can’t find it in himself to be eager for the emotional distress that’s going to come afterwards.

His dad calls, and it’s to rant about how one of Bitty’s cousins has _gone degenerate._

“Why, I’d go as far as to say to block him in your phone. You don’t want to be mingling with that crowd, Junior,” he says. “It’s such a disgusting display. America used to be _worth_ something.”

“Right,” Bitty says, exhausted, because he knows that he can’t say anything else.

“You don’t wanna be talkin’ with those folk. Not that I think you’d catch it, but with your lifestyle I wouldn’t be surprised,” and then he laughs, because he doesn’t know.

“’Course, Coach,” Bitty agrees, and he knows his nails are digging too deep into his thigh.

“I always knew there was something disgusting about that boy. And now look, he’s gone and decided to be a fruitcake. They’re vile creatures, Junior, your poor mother’s distraught. Why, she said—,”

“Coach, I’m gonna have to call you back,” Bitty murmurs, swallowing hard, because he doesn’t want to know what his mother said. “The connection’s real bad here.”

And then he hangs up, and it comes. The tightness in his chest and the tears in his eyes, and the desperate, hopeless feeling that crawls up his spine.

Part of him wants to sit here and cry. In Jack’s old room, curled up on the blue comforter. He could just sit and cry until his eyes swelled and his lungs heaved. He could linger on his father’s words, let them tumble around in his brain until he’d run them raw. Or he could let go, because family shouldn’t hurt needlessly, and all of this was awful needless.

So he breathes for a while, running through the exercises that he sits and does with Jack when he’s having a hard time, and he rubs at his face until it’s dry. Then he checks in the mirror for redness and makes his way down the stairs. Alicia and Jack are sitting at the table. They’re playing a card game, but it’s clear that Jack’s confused about what’s going on, so it’s probably one that Alicia’s just taught him. Bob is standing at the counter nearby, thumbing through pages in the newspaper.

“This economy,” Bob grumbles, and Jack mumbles something that makes Alicia laugh. He’s chirping his father, probably teasing about age, and Bitty smiles. He slides into a chair next to Jack, and Jack’s hand finds his immediately.

“Do you know how to play this?”

Bitty, having watched them play a round on his way over, nods. “Ratscrew? Sure. My cousins and I used to get so loud that we weren’t allowed to play anymore.”

Alicia cackles, and Bitty wonders if the existence of the game had been a topic of debate. Jack lays a card down, groaning as Alicia slaps her hand down on top of it.

“Two fives,” she explains cheekily, sliding the deck into her already thick pile. Jack gives Bitty a look that reads, _can you believe this?_

Bob closes the paper, taking the fourth seat at the table and gathering up all the cards. “Alright, alright,” he says. “Let me teach you a _real_ card game.”

Jack groans, but Bitty finds himself grinning. The atmosphere is warm, and there’s no hiding in this room.

  


_**5** _

Bitty’s not oblivious, but he still finds himself blindsided by events, sometimes, even if they’re things that he absolutely should have seen coming.

And this is definitely one of those events.

Bitty should have known from the moment that Jack reserved a nice restaurant for a warm Tuesday afternoon in July. But, the fact remains that he didn’t know. They’re sitting down at a nice table draped with a white cloth, and Jack’s parents are sitting on the other side. Alicia has been grinning the whole night—which should have been another dead giveaway—as they drink wine to the sound of water bubbling from a iridescent fountain behind them. It’s a warm day on the coast of Massachusetts, and Bitty’s content to sit and laugh about Bob’s strange trip to Italy without wondering why they are where they are.

He continues his not-wondering as they finish up dinner and walk to sit by the docks on the sea next to the restaurant. A fish jumps somewhere far out, and Bitty watches the sea sparkle in the reflections of the lights. Bob and Alicia have gone to down on a bench not too far away, looking at photos on Alicia’s phone, while Jack and Bitty linger on the dock.

Eventually they roll up their pants and dangle their feet in the water, chirping each other until they settle back to watch the fish and waves. Jack’s finger is tapping on the dock—a nervous tick of his—but Bitty likes to wait for Jack to come to him, if he can. He trusts his boyfriend to talk about things on his own time, and so he doesn’t comment or linger on it.

There’s nothing insanely notable about the moment at all, not until Bitty turns to point out a colorful party boat to his boyfriend and finds Jack already watching him intently.

His gaze travels down, and a ring waits.

Bitty takes a moment to process, staring at it wide-eyed. His gaze travels back up to Jack with an open mouth. He feels the tears hit at the exact same moment that he says, “ _Jack.”_

And then he’s crying into his boyfriend’s neck, hugging him on a dock in Marblehead, Massachusetts with their toes in the dancing waters.

“I want you to be in my life forever,” Jack murmurs in his ear.

Bitty cries harder, but he’s laughing. “I want to be in your life forever, darlin’.”

When they stand up, Bitty’s got a ring on his finger, and he’s still crying when he hugs Alicia. It strikes him that Bob and Alicia Zimmerman are going to be his real, actual in-laws, and having a mother-in-law doesn’t sound anything like the horror stories and jokes that he always hears down in the South. It sounds like warm and true family, and it sounds like something lovely.

When he draws back, Bob pulls him, and he’s laughing now as he cries and hugs the closest thing to a father figure that he’s ever had.

They go out for ice cream and sit outside in the humid air of a summer night as they eat their ice cream with Pirouette sticks.

Next to Bitty sits his fiancé, and on his other side are Bob and Alicia Zimmerman, who loved him more in five years than his parents ever did in twenty three.

_**  
** _

_**+1** _

“Snow!”

“I know, sweet-pea, it’s snowin’ hard, huh?”

“She’s learning fast,” Alicia comments from behind Bitty. He turns around, grinning at her. The baby in his arms squeals, holding out her arms. She’s nearly two, and Bitty won’t be able to call her a baby for much longer, so he cherishes it while he can.

Alicia sweeps her up, tickling her sides.

“She’s a smart girl,” Bitty agrees, grinning at them.

The baby twists in Alicia’s arms to jab a chubby finger at the window. “Snow!”

“It’s snowing,” Alicia agrees. “Would you like to play in it, Estelle?”

If her shrieks are anything to go by, she does. Alicia turns to Bitty, raising an eyebrow.

“No _thank you,_ ” Bitty says, before she can even ask. “Y’all have fun, I’m staying inside where it’s warm. That much cold is unnatural.”

“Down,” Estelle demands, and as soon as Alicia has placed her feet on the ground she’s taken off as fast as her chubby legs will carry her, wobbling unsteadily to the closet where she knows the snow gear is.

Jack wanders around the corner, and Bitty turns to him to say, “she gets this from you,” to which Jack only grins in response as he goes to tug on all of her snow gear. Bitty makes his way to the kitchen, where Bad Bob Zimmerman is eating ice cream with a little boy who has just turned five years old. 

“Ice cream before dinner?”

“Felix did it,” Bob says, though his grin says otherwise. The little boy giggles out his protests.

“I didn’t!” He insists, his face covered in chocolate. “Pépère said that I could because he wanted moose tracks!” 

“Mhm,” Bitty replies, grabbing a napkin and wetting it. “That’s what I thought.” 

“He’s about to go and run it all off anyway, right? All that snow and nobody’s played in it yet.” The baby shrieks gleefully from the doorway again, and Jack and Alicia laugh. “You better hurry, or your sister will beat you to all the good snow.” 

“No!” Felix protests, charging away to go and tug on his own snow gear. 

Bitty sits down in his son’s place, stretching. “I feel like I could nap for a hundred years.” 

“That’s called being old,” Bob chirps. “Is outside too cold for you?” 

“If Jack likes below-freezing so much, he can handle those two for a while on his own.”

“Oh, I’m sure Alicia will go with,” Bob replies, taking another bite of his moose tracks. “She likes to play in the snow with the kids.” 

“It’s not too cold for Estelle?” Bitty frets, off-topic. “She’s so little.” 

“Babies are tougher than they seem,” Bob replies. “Jack fell through ice at a camp when he was five, and he turned out alright, eh?” 

“Through the ice?”

“All the way through. Scared Alicia and I half to death when we heard, but he didn’t even seem bothered when we went to get him. He was just happy that he got to miss school for a few days when he got a cold.” Bob gets up to rinse his bowl, pointing his spoon out the window to where Jack is holding Estelle’s hands as she wobbles through the snow on the patio. Further out, Felix is building an igloo with Alicia.

The clouds darken the skies somewhat, but all the Christmas lights that are strung up make it easier to see. Bitty settles back into his chair, content with his husband’s snow expertise. After all, Felix had survived his winters as a baby, so they must have done okay with keeping him protected from the cold.

The image isn’t what he’d imagined for himself as a kid. He had assumed, then, that he would marry some girl, that he wouldn’t ever get this kind of love. He had figured he would marry young to a housewife in the South, and there would be children raised in tight and dangerous norms in a hot little town in Georgia. He had never thought about raising his children in chilly Providence, Rhode Island or spending their holidays in Montreal. He had never seen a Canadian husband or teaching his children to say both _cup_ and _la tasse._ But he’s happier here than he ever would have ever imagined as a child, and he’s so unbelievably thankful that this is the path he’s been allowed to take.

He wants to spend every night for the rest of his life with Jack. He wants to watch the kids graduate, wants to protect each step of their journey, and he wants to raise them with a family who undeniably swaddled them with love each day.

And Bitty knows that Jack will be there, and he knows that Bob and Alicia will always be there when he needs parents, and he knows that Felix and Estelle will always know that their parents love them.

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr is [12am](12am.tumblr.com) if you wanna see more from me!! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


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